The Truth About Why Women Leave Tech

InHerSight data shines more light on what it means to be a woman in tech, and four key areas where the industry falls short.

Women in tech are highly satisfied, especially when compared to other industries. So says ratings data collected from women for over 50,000 companies on InHerSight -- data that show that tech is the highest-rated industry by women overall.

Led by companies like Procore Technologies, Ericsson, and Google, women in tech are more satisfied than women in any other industry with their Paid Time Off, Flexible Work Hours, Maternity and Adoptive Leave, and more.

So why are women still leaving the tech field at higher rates than men? The answer is that tech still has some real problems, as a deeper look at InHerSight's 15 rating categories reveals. While the industry rates highly in some categories, it falls short in others.

Here's what women are telling us about what tech could do better.

1. Female Representation In Tech Leadership

Tech comes in at #12 (out of 16 industries) for this ratings category, which measures satisfaction with women on the executive team, in senior leadership, etc.

“Some outstanding resources and people. Very few women leaders at top levels, however. Certain departments are very much more "evolved" than others in their thinking on issues of diversity.”

“For women, this company has initiatives in place that could be great but their [sic] is a tremendous lack in management to allow employees to take advantage of these and once you are a mother your back is against the wall.”

3. Equal Opportunities for Women in Tech

It's probably not surprising that recent InHerSight data show that the Equal Opportunities category is highly correllated with overall satisfaction at a company. Tech comes in at #8 (out of 16 industries) for this category.

“While Apple is making small efforts towards equalizing the balance between women and men at all levels, much work is needed. The default mode is white maleness, and I'd like to see that called out and named more during conversations about diversity and inclusion.”

4. Company Responsiveness for Women in Tech

In case you missed it, we recently talked about some of the things we're learning from our newest ratings category, Company Responsiveness, which measures how well companies respond to concerns raised by their employees. Long story short, it's very important to women -- the second most powerful driver of overall satisfaction, in fact!

Tech doesn't do too bad here, coming in at the middle of the pack, but the recent news coverage about major failings in this category means it needs more work.

“The sexual harassment at amazon [sic] is out of hand. Very rarely do they actually do anything about it. They just send you to HR and have you fill out a complaint form and nothing gets resolved. I've been groped on the weekly for 2 years by the same people. Nothing had been done about it.”

So, in addition to asking how do we get more women into tech it’s critical that we also ask: When women do get into tech, what is it like when they arrive?

At InHerSight, we want to make sure that the tech industry grows to be a welcoming environment -- one that supports women in many different ways. This means that we need to focus in on the specific aspects of tech that women are unsatisfied with.

It may also mean investigating the brogrammer culture that reportedly exists in many tech companies today, and which could be leading to some of these deeper issues (more on that soon...)

At InHerSight, our mission is to improve the workplace for women by measuring it. We bring women’s insights together into a common framework to show where companies excel and where they fall short so more women can find their ideal workplace. For more on women in the workplace follow InHerSight on Twitter or Facebook.